The three proudest teams in America today are Alabama, Texas A&M and Georgia. Bama, for the obvious reasons; the Aggies, because they’re the only ones to have beaten the Tide this season; Georgia, because it was 5 yards short from upsetting Bama in the SEC championship.

Still, it beats what the pundits were saying after the 2011 season ended. Or what they might have said if the Dawgs had lost to Nebraska.

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23 responses to “It’s not much, but it’s something.”

That makes me feel about as good as those folks who are saying, “The real national title game was played in Atlanta on Dec. 1!” Well, guess what? Our guys still lost that one, so it doesn’t make things any better.

What’s really bothersome is that even after ND was completely destroyed, we’re still ranked behind them. I could handle being 3 or 4 behind Oregon and/or A&M. But being ranked behind Notre Dame after that pathetic showing last night is frustrating.

Here are the SEC teams that ALL should be ranked ahead of ND: Alabama, Georgia, Texas A&M, LSU, South Carolina, and Florida. That was the biggest mismatch in a title game that I have ever seen. The Bama spring game will be more competitive.

Yep. And that continues onward into the future for their selection as part of a 4-team “playoff”. Convincing the CFB fan public that selecting 4 instead of two teams is the biggest switcheroo ever foisted on us in delaying the legitimate playoff of the top 8 teams.

The real crime is that none of the ND fawners will be in the least bit chastened after last night’s drubbing. ND fields its best team in years, navigates its schedule without a loss, appears in the title game…and gets eviscerated by Alabama. And yet, the special treatment will go on. We don’t deny ND’s tradition; we only ask that they be made to earn their present status on merit.

They should be required to join a conference or dropped from the special treatment. They take away from their own players by scheduling 5-loss (or worse) teams. If they can’t up the competition for their players by joining a conference, they are putting their avarice ahead of their gloried past. Let them suffer the consequences. Heard these sentiments on CSS and think that they hit the mark.

I know I’m a voice in the desert out here but I’m going to try to do what little I can to make polls make more sense by repeating this to as many people as I can:

The first problem with polls starts in the pre-season when these media types begin their “predictive model” of rankings. Why do I give a shit that you think West Virginia has a schedule they can run the table on? I’m not asking you to be Nostradamus douche!!

The question isn’t whether you can impress your friends with how closely your preseason poll matches your final poll. The sole question is: who is the best team? Given that you struggle with that question, adding complexities such as what may or may not happen in November seems a bit presumptuous.

The second problem is the way teams are ranked as the season progresses. How many people thought, before the game, that notre dame was better than bama? Few. Very few. Why then did people who thought bama was better rank them below notre dame? Does “rank” have some secret meaning that I don’t get? I thought “ranking” meant you put the best team first. Why was the best team second???

Makes no sense and until we get rid of predictive preseason ranking and the idea of “deserving” a ranking you are going to have stupid results like voters putting notre Dame ahead of us and A&M despite fact that they’d lose by at least 3 TD’s if they played either.

The FU and FSU rankings show that they just flipped coins. Others are a guess predicated on this year.

FU is losing their top 3 D guys,(and their depth is suspect) plus there is now no backup to Driskell. Brissett is gone along with a receiver on O. They are now worse than the team we have beaten for two years.

FSU will have to break in a new O system and with several D players, plus a transfer or two(including recruits) lost, hold no particular power sway over the teams “ranked” underneath. It’s all bogus bullshit!

I saw a cartoon today, the text was ” We heard that Notre Dame had an SEC quality defense, but didn’t expect it to be Auburn’s”. Man, they got gouged on the run, never laid a hand on AJ McCarron, and could not cover any of their receivers. What a disappointing failure they were as a contender. It is a glaring example of why polls determining the Top 2-4 teams will never be an adequate answer. When you look at the ferocious schedule we had heard about, it turned out to be ACCesque. No wonder ND chose the ACC for their conference affilaition, must have consulted Diddy, who also knew to steer clear of the SEC and take the path of less resistance.

Georgia has a lot more than 5 yards to make up on Alabama…consider that:

– Bama had more recruited scholarship players than Georgia on its roster (i.e., Bama had 80 recruited scholarship players to start the season; UGA had 67 recruited scholarship players to start the season [would have been 68 but Kolton Houston was ruled ineligible by the NCAA])

— Bama signed 135 players (avg. 27 players/yr) the last 5 years (2008-2012) while Georgia signed 108 (avg. 21.6 players/yr); bottomline: Bama had more recruited scholarship players to cull from and hedge against attrition

– Bama is a more disciplined team than Georgia (i.e., Bama is the least penalized team in FBS the last 5 years (in 2012, Bama was penalized 104 times for 903 yds; in 2012, Georgia was penalized 186 times for 1,448 yds; thus Georgia provided its opponents 545 more yds than Alabama))

– Bama spends more money on its football program than Georgia (i.e., Bama spent $36.9 million on its football program while Georgia spent $22.7 million; in other words, Georgia spent $14.2 million less on its football program than did Bama…or if you prefer, Bama spent 62.6% more on its football program than Georgia did)

– Bama employs a bigger Football Staff than Georgia (i.e., Bama employs at least 7 Football Analysts (in June 2012 they had 9 per al.com article) while Georgia employs none)

Bloviation for the Dawgnation

Quote Of The Day

“I didn’t know I got criticism,” Richt quipped, feigning incredulousness. “It’s just the nature of the beast. If you can’t take criticism, then you shouldn’t coach.” -- AJ-C, 7/21/15